His Majesty King Willem-Alexander attends opening of Rotterdam Centraal Station

In the heart of Rotterdam looms a menacing new giant; a 50,000 sq m transport hub that connects train, tram, bus and subway. Rotterdam Centraal Station opened earlier this month under the watchful gaze of

His Majesty King Willem-Alexander and is now fully operational, serving as many as 110,000

passengers every day. Located a mere twenty minutes from Schipol Airport and with Paris only two and a half hours away, Rotterdam Centraal Station is a key new transport hub for Europe. The memorable wood and steel design is the result of a collaboration between three Dutch architecture firms - Benthem Crouwel Architects, MVSA Meyer and Van Schooten Architecten, and West 8 - and takes its cue from central stations

in other major European cities such as Brussels and Madrid. Whilst the interior spaces of the transport hub boast an international flavour, the exterior has been aesthetically tailored to be sensitive to its locale. To the north of the station is the Provenierswijk neighbourhood whose character is that of a 19th-century Dutch provincial town. As such, the design team has inserted a modest face... Read more

Top stories this week

1 Singapore's National Design Centre, Singapore

Last week, the very first Singapore Design Week was held in the city's cultural district of Bras Basah-Bugis, bringing together creative minds from product design to architecture and fashion to photography. The event was hosted by Singapore's National Design Centre, a recently-completed scheme by Soo K. Chan and his firm SCDA... Read more

2 Abu Dhabi Ladies Club, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

This recreational facility designed by UPA (lead consultant) and Tony Owen Partners (sub consultant) has been established as a bench mark for future development in the city of Abu Dhabi, particularly for female residents. Items used by local Abu Dhabi women have been used as inspiration points in the design of the main clubhouse... Read more

3 Dubai Opera, Downtown Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Emaar Properties has released early designs for Dubai Opera, a 2,000-seat performance venue destined to be the crowning glory of its latest development: The Opera District. It is envisioned that The Opera District in Downtown Dubai will generate global exchange through a comprehensive and engaging cultural scene, supported by... Read more

4 Aarau Station Forecourt and Bus Station, Aarau, Switzerland

Visitors to the new bus station in the Swiss town of Aarau will often find themselves looking up at the clouds, even on the sunniest of days. This will not be due to adverse weather conditions but the result of a bold bus shelter installed by Vehovar & Jauslin with engineers formTL. The 'cloud', as it has been affectionately... Read more

5 Footbridge, Lyon, France

The Passerelle de la Paix is a 220m-long bridge designed by Dietmar Feichtinger Architects and Schlaich Bergermann & Partner which opened to much fanfare on Monday 17 March. Arching elegantly over the Rhone River in Lyon, the $20m bridge provides a direct link between district six and the Park of Saint Clair at Caluire et Cuire. Residents can now enjoy a leisurely... Read more

How we communicate, how we dress, what we eat - all this is part of our culture, part of where we come from. Country-specific practices shape values and patterns of behaviour, as well as a sense of style and aesthetics. Our likes are also reflected in our bathroom furnishings. Some prefer a minimalist interior, whilst others tend towards bright colours and sweeping shapes. So is there

Tokyo-born architect Shigeru Ban has been awarded the 2014 Pritzker Prize for Architecture, becoming the seventh Japanese architect to receive the honour. Ban follows in the footsteps of Kenzo Tange (1987), Fumihiko Maki (1993), Tadao Ando (1995), the team of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (2010), and Toyo Ito (2013) to fly the flag for Japanese design talent.

one particular bathroom design that combines different cultural influences at international level whilst retaining its own distinctive style? For example, in Japan, bathing is celebrated as a ritual. Japanese baths are generally soaking tubs in which the user sits immersed up to the neck in water. Cleansing itself takes place before the actual bath; bathing is for relaxing. Architect and designer Matteo Thun translated this tradition into a... Read more

The 56-year-old architect is respected throughout the industry for his ingenious handling of unusual building materials, often utilising cardboard, bamboo, fabric and recycled paper where others may consider only concrete and steel. Through elegant schemes such as the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France and the Haesley Nine Bridges Golf Club House in Korea, Ban has shown himself to be an exceptionally gifted architect... Read more

Video Interview: Exclusiveinsight from Adam Richards

Zaha Hadid and Samoo-designedDongdaemun Design Plaza now open

Review: Being an Architect

Shop Talk: Morag Morrison

Few architects write an autobiography. Few architects have as much to say about their biography as Ian Ritchie and in as many ways as he has now. In this two-volume beautifully designed and printed tome, published by the Royal Academy of Arts, Ritchie opens up access not only to the creative and technological processes for which he is well known but also to his mind,

In this week's Shop Talk interview, Michael Hammond speaks with Morag Morrison, Partner at Hawkins\Brown and a member of the 2013 WAN Colour in Architecture Award jury panel. Morag was also part of the team that won the inaugural WAN Colour in Architecture Award back in 2011 with the New Biochemistry Building at the University of Oxford, UK. During the interview,

his inner being and reveals his personal thoughts and feelings around what it is to be an architect. It is also full of his poetry, over 30 distributed at relevant points in the text. Those who know him well will have experienced his passion and the deep sense of love he has for architecture. These qualities commit Ritchie to examine every aspect of the art and science to be found in each project. This is illustrated by a detailed biographical story of his life, from... Read more

Morag explains how Hawkins\Brown have recently moved into new offices in Clerkenwell, London after outgrowing their former studio. The team headed the redesign project themselves, creating a flexible workspace over two levels connected with a steel staircase. The building was once used as a lift factory but now plays host to a series of meeting rooms (one of which Morag tells us was rented to Warner Bros. to brainstorm for the... Read more